Elevator Story
by Alex the Anachronistic
Summary: Lily Potter and Severus Snape meet in an elevator, which stalls. And they are alone. Together. Should you be muttering 'Poor Lily', 'Poor Severus', or 'Poor James? Sometime before Harry's birth.


_DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does. _

**Elevator Story **

Cling! The elevator doors flew open--literally of their own accord. Floor 423, or so read the sign above the door.

A lean and wiry man, with a haggard look and dreary color scheme for dress, joined the mass of sweaty bodies in the cage. Most of these latter did not take especial notice of the rather young man, thin and pale in the poor glowing elevator lights. After all, he blended very well into the crowded stereotype of beatnik, Muggle-hippie-imitating youths who had nothing better to do than glare and seethe at every living soul they met. Not at all a pleasant sort of chap, people generally thought of him.

"How sad a sight he is!" mused an elderly female just broaching the age of seventy, "Probably thrown away from his own home and family, he wears such awful clothes! If I didn't know any better, and if I didn't think he'd slit my throat at the suggestion, I'd like to bring him back and cook him and Jim a jolly British meal . . ."

A portly old chappie crinkled his furrowed brow and decided the man: "One of those modern, murderous scum who clog up the air with their newfangled _Beedovers Buddlenicks_ or whatnot, then go waltzing around the countryside like they're some kind of men or something. No such thing as a decent youth anymore, not of his types . . ."

One rather buxom middle-aged woman straining to look wistfully sprightly thought the pale young man "Hideous," but added, "Yet, though I'd never admit as much to my grandmother, I should say he had at least a _bit_ of S.A. with those dark black locks . . ."

Collectively, the few middle-aged brutes in the elevator concurred: "Churlish idiot, some schmancy beggar who's just starting out. Ah, I remember the days when I was in his place—but I was not so god-damned forsaken as that one there!"

Amid all these rather collaborative opinions of the tepid man who came, mild and cool, into the elevator, only one recognized him.

"Severus," recalled a young woman of his age, a thrill fleeting through her heart.

………………

Severus Snape had a cold glare with a hint of malice for every person in the elevator. Most of them felt as though their nasty surmises of him would bring about some retribution on his part, and, guiltily, downwards cast their eyes. Yet he himself paid little heed for the dingy, faded old hags, the potbellied, scheming older men, et al: he gave them only a cursory surmise. He had more important business than to pay them any amount of attention. For after all, they would all have died by the time the Dark Lord had finished with them, would they not now?

He did not catch the sight of a young lady with delicate auburn hair and striking green eyes—Lily Potter.

………

The elevator doors swung open again, now at floor 420. Nearly all the car emptied; the respective members hurried, for their call to jury closed in upon them. Only two people in the elevator did not have a need to attend the trial: Snape and Potter. Both remained as the gates clicked closed again; one oblivious, and one pained in the other's indifference.

Dare she speak? Dare she breath? She had not seen him in a precious many months, almost a year. The last time, too, she had only glanced him in the streets. Now she wondered--for not the first time--why every letter she sent him never went replied, why every invitation to call had remained without an R.S.V.P. of any sort, and how come he had not even attended her wedding last year with James.

Severus had been her best friend in Hogwarts for years until the day she told him to scram. He had never approached her since, and Lily secretly regretted it. However, she had Gryffindor pride; after all, and where her dignity had received assault, she needed mend. Time had done all the necessary repairs, but now, when she saw him after so long, she still felt proper indignation not amiss.

Severus and Lily stood like this for approximately three and three-quarters minutes. At this point, the elevator gave an abrupt lurch in an unfriendly direction, and Lily pummeled against her old classmate.

"Hell!" Snape gave a yelp of surprise—not a common thing at all for him—as Lily's body cascaded against his own, and both fell to the floor.

Lily rose, apologetic. "Sorry," she murmured , and wondered whether to say anything more. Severus brushed himself off and haughtily faced the opposite direction. Yet, Lily detected a trifle more to his brusqueness. She read, in a short glance of his features, a painful sobriety that came from more than his derriere hitting the floor.

He had simply found himself surprised beyond measure, and did not dare to face _her_.

Lily—why was Lily here? Why did the one woman he had never wanted to see again, who haunted his dreams, whose face he had to send to the farthest depths of his mind when confronting the Dark Lord—why did she have to step once more into his life? Of course, she would disappear probably the next time the doors opened--or else he would-- but why had the soft skin of her hand grazed his own, and why did her light, firm form have a need to press against him? What had he done to deserve such tortures, such that only fueled his exhausting infatuation and encouraged his adoration yet?

Snape had liked today up to this point. His mission to fire Elliot Bayrinkle had run smoothly, and he had made sure the Ministry hired Spark Joyron as maintenance manager. Besides, Lucius had thrown him a couple galleons for purchasing a decent set of dress robes, and his new cleaning woman had promised him pot-roast tonight. Why, to spoil all this splendor, had he the ill luck to encounter _her? _

Well, he reasoned, he definitely would get off at the next floor, unless she did. That would put a damper on this trouble. A split second later, however, he saw this option also close. The elevator had stopped moving—not as though to stop, but as though stuck. Hence the heavy lurch of the car that had brought _her _to his notice in the first place.

Lily saw the problem too. She also observed him glance over his shoulder, in spite of himself, to catch a glimpse of her. It struck her that she might have chosen a more striking position than that she bore: slouching against the wall, legs extended in front of her body, arms limp at her sides, like some oversized rag doll.

Snape, almost embarrassedly, began to pace back and forth before her.

He had loved Lily as wildfire hates bulldozers. The passion and affection he had for her had existed since he caught a single glance of her from his doorstep on Spinner's End. She had walked past with her mother and sister on a shortcut to the grocery. Mainly he desired, at that early age, only for her companionship rather than a lust for her flesh, and he had felt pure, untainted love of the purest and most genuine quality. He knew all too well how to worship the ground on which a female walked, for he did feel such an endearment to her. Even now, though sometimes at night the longing for her body did enthrall him, more often he regretted the mistakes of his youth and lamented his sorry lack of her friendship. Now he gazed sadly at the floor as it moved under his elegant feet, though if Lily had looked, she could not suppose his face or soul contained an ounce of emotion.

The pair did not speak, did not hear, and did not care to look at each other except covertly. Lily still felt anger and a stubborn callousness for Severus, which grew with every passing second his lips did not stir with speech. She knew it foolish to think that he would broach a conversation after such a prolonged standstill in their somewhat-platonic relationship. Yet, even when she had sent him epistles bearing kindly mark, he could not accept them. She knew a soft, sensitive man dwelled within his heart, but he liked to keep his kindness and compassion hidden. This latter idiosyncrasy of his made the situation very difficult.

Lily finally concluded that, if she wanted anything to happen, she would have to initiate the spark.

"Severus."

She said the word, neither a plea for recognition nor a question of fact—Lily did not know how she had said it, nor how he would interpret it.

Snape did not even flinch. He had prepared for this, he had known she would try to talk to him—maybe criticize him—and he did not intend to fall for her wiles. He meant to separate his heart to the entreaties of others, though he knew he would do anything for her. After all, had she not known him away to instead embrace his greatest bane, James Potter?

"Severus," Lily stated again, pleading this time. Her voice filled with concern.

Despite himself, Snape gave a quiet scoff. "_Mrs. Potter_."

Lily's stomach did a backflip inside her, and she felt the pressure of the newly formed baby dwelling inside her woumb. She looked expectantly at Snape, as though he might have suspected her pregnancy, but he did nothing but stop pacing to stare at the elevator doors. With a deep breath, audible to both occupants of the elevator, Lily mused, "Do you think it's been stalled?"

The words, though comedic because of the obviousness of the circumstance, failed to bring life or animation to Severus' pallid countenance. He said nothing, not even a sarcastic retort, his silence scorn enough.

At once, he whipped his wand from an invisible pocket to fire numerous hexes at the metal doors, to no avail. After Snape fired a great many spells, hexes, and charms, they remained as impassive and unbreakable as ever.

"Damn." He leaned against the wall to wipe a smattering of perspiration drops from his brow.

"I guess we may be in here a while." Lily ventured, slightly hurt that he had not answered her before, "So how have you been of late? Do you--"

"—You dare inquire how I have been? After all you did?" Snape rounded on her, angry and vehement.

Lily, though gratified that she had forced a few drops of conversation from the reticent dried-out lotion bottle of her childhood friend, found her flesh flaming. "What _I _did to you? What was that, pray; last I recall, you were the one who called me a filthy Mudblood in front of my friends."

Snape scowled, fierce and beyond irate. "I apologized for that, and still do even after you told me to abandon you. I did just that, in good faith, but your cruelest strike was that of marrying _Potter_." He spat out the words with a strange intensity that scared Lily. She stood from where she sat against the wall.

"I married Potter because I love him. He loves me too, and he did not have any hesitation about being on the side of the Ministry against death eaters, like you." She glared in a manner to compete with him.

"Well, I suppose you never saw how many girls he hung around with all the time," Severus countered, trying to beat Lily's straightforward gaze.

Lily took advantage of his reaction to conduct more effrontery. "It's better than hanging around with death-eaters every blooming moment of the day," she snarled.

She had steeped her words in vindictiveness and truth before serving them to him. Severus could not maintain his side for the lack of composure, and his gaze went downwards shamefacedly. Lily knew, with a great deal of satisfaction, she had won this section of the battle, but her glee ended when she saw a bit of glassiness around his eyes—not as though it stayed for long. A wave of piteous, recumbent emotions flowed through her.

The moment did not last long, and SNape's temporary lapse of stoic mein disappeared in a flash of anger.

"Wouldn't you know," Severus snipped terrifyingly, "That maybe I had my reasons? Maybe I had a purpose in joining forces with the Dark Lord? Maybe I had ulterior motives even you might never suspect?"

Lily stared. The thought had not ever occurred to her; in fact, the question of _why_ Snape affiliated himself with evil entities never had taxed her. She had always somehow assumed because his Slytherin rank automatically made him an easily attained candidate, but a conversation they had held once floated to her mind . . .

…………..

"Lily, you see those older boys yonder?"

The sun slowly sank down into a sea of tangerines and Concord grapes behind them, and the children sat on the fire escape of Severus' house.

_Mm. He said 'yonder'. What a beautiful word. _Lily scarcely knew its meaning, but Severus had recently discovered it and now used it constantly.

"Mhm. What about them?"

The boys had cans of spray paint, which they shook. Lily judged them about a kilometer away, skulking in the back lot of an empty house.

"They're going to start painting up the walls. Just watch. It's so stupid and pointless."

Lily's eyelids fluttered. "I always wondered who did all that ugly artwork. Mother always tells me not to look at it."

"It's better you don't. Though you can't always read it, when you can, it's ugly words." Severus paused. "Words I think are too ugly for you to read." His eyes cast down.

"Words like your dad—"

"—Remember we weren't going to talk about that!"

"Ok." Lily gloomily gazed at her toes. 

Snape, in attempt to cheer her up, began to chatter. "Anyways, you know those blokes down there with the paint, they're called a gang."

"What's that?"

"It's . . . it's when a bloke thinks he's so smart that he thinks other people should follow him." Severus began to talk like a colloquial dictionary. "Kinda like the king, but on a small scale. So the bloke thinks some sort of king, and gets a bunch of his pals to do whatever he tells them to. And they do. Most of the guys don't know that the bloke ordering them around is just another scumbag like them with just a big ego. All they know is that when he says something, they gotta do it, or else they'll get punished by the other guys in the gang for not doing it."

"How are they punished, Sev?"

Severus shrugged. "Sometimes they'll be kicked out of the gang . . . but more often they'll be put to death."

"Do any of them know that the king really isn't as great as they think?" Lily queried, a bit more solemnly than what suited her.

"The really smart ones do," Severus nodded, "So they're extra careful not to offend the king in any way, and do what he says all the time."

"But," Lily pointed out the crucial question, "If they know he's just as good as them, how come they don't go and start their own gang? Why do they follow the king at all?"

"That there is the crux of the problem," murmured Severus sadly. "It's this thing with their personality, I guess. They want to impress, to feel useful, or something else, and they just don't have the guts to start making other people follow them. But I think a lot of them are just sad and don't care any more about what happens to them, so they just join for the heck of it. . ."

………………………

There she had his reasons in a nutshell, easily. He did not care about himself anymore. The very idea plunged into her mind, an icy sword that stabbed the searing flesh of the blazing saharah. But, just to make sure, she asked delicately, "What motives do you mean?" All anger had dissipated from her expression.

Severus did not answer; instead the elevator gave a lurch. The humming noise as it wooshed downwards testified to its newly working state. Lily gazed at Severus pointedly, not sure what to say, pondering why he cared so little about his life that had made him join the ranks of the evil . . .

Finally, with a great heave, the elevator stopped and flung its doors open wide.

"Probably a simple dysfunction," muttered Severus, tearing her thoughts as they wound around the spindle of her brain. He started for the door. Then, abruptly, he turned around to see Lily's diminished anger and more reverent features. They frightened him; why did she always have the inclination to see him with such _pity _all the time?

"Stop pressuring your _pretty _head to figure out my words," he sneered, as though he could read her mind. Lily opened her mouth to retort, but found no words to do so. Severus went on, "You might have been the brightest star in our graduating class, but you never did notice when a forsaken young bastard was head over heels in love with you."

Then he stalked out of the elevator, leaving Lily in shocked amazement behind him.


End file.
